Will Afghanistan Become the "Saudi Arabia of Lithium"?

Image: Flickr, CCNot So Fast...Who would have thought that "Afghanistan" would someday be associated with "electric cars"? Well, maybe some people did. As John points out in his post today, it's been known for decades that Afghanistan contains vast mineral resources, including immense quantities of the main component of most portable electronics and electric car batteries: lithium. But what does this mean for the future of the electric cars, the environment, and Afghanistan? Let's look at a few ways this story could unfold.

Image: Wikipedia, GFDL/CCWhat Can We Realistically Expect in the Near-Future?Sadly, the answer is "not much". Afghanistan is a very poor country still in the middle of an interminable armed conflict. It has almost zero infrastructure and any attempts to improve that can run into a variety of problems (corruption, Taliban, lack of capital and tools to build that infrastructure). So while the country might have a lot of lithium (and other valuable minerals like iron, copper, cobalt, gold, etc), these probably won't be mined in any quantity for a while. We're likely to see Bolivia turn into the Saudi Arabia of lithium before we see Afghanistan claim that title...

Good for the Afghan Population?Some optimists are saying that mining will become the new foundation of the Afghan economy (replacing heroin...) and help the country climb out of abject poverty and instability. I sincerely hope that's what happens, and that they will exploit those mineral resources responsibly and not poison their air, ground, and water. But sadly, mineral riches don't automatically equal an improvement in the lives of the locals; just look at all those African countries that have vast quantities of minerals but are some of the worst places in the world to live. Let's hope Afghanistan can avoid that.

It's also likely that the adoption of electric cars and plug-in hybrids will be gradual enough that the supply of lithium won't be a bottleneck, at least not for geophysical reasons (geopolitics is another matter). Many are worried that lithium might be the oil of the 21st century, but chances are that the title is going to go to fresh water (demand is going up, but not supply).